Sometimes, you shoot a roll of film, and you just put it in a drawer. Either you forget about it or you wait until you have shot more of them before you develop. The other day, I found a roll of Ilford Delta 100 35mm, that I couldn’t remember what I used for. I developed it in Adox Atomal 49, and it turned out to be a film I used at a trip during the summer of 2019 at a landscape photography trip to Veståsen in Nordre Land.
What camera I used, is completely blank to me, but based on the time the roll was exposed, and the quality of the exposures, I would imagine it was either done with my Nikon F80 or the Minolta Dynax SPXi. Here; a beautiful view over the little lake «Akksjøen»:
Summer mood at Akksjøen in Nordre Land – Ilford Delta 100 – Adox Atomal 49
This is one of my first rolls that I have developed with the Adox Atomal 49 developer, and I must say that I am very happy with how this developer makes the images look. The grain is very fine and I get the full film-speed without any issues. In comparison with my other Veryfinegraindeveloper Ilfotec Perceptol, where you have to shave off some of your film speed.
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I just quickly wanted to share this picture with you, from a distant past without any Covid-regulations nor fear of a world pandemic.
Did you know that Mitsubishi, the manufacturer of cars, air conditioning units and heaters also at some point made film? At least, they had a line of film branded with their name on it at some point, and whether it is a rebranded Fujifilm or Konica film, is unknown to me. What I do know, is that the film I got in my hand is «Made in Japan» and has English writing on it. It also states that it was made at «Mitsubishi paper mills».
Roll with 24 frames of Mitsubishi MX-III 400 colour film.
Since the film was 15 years expired, I decided to shoot it at ISO 160 and use a camera that I trust. I therefore went for my Nikon F80 with a modern 85mm Sigma lens, that is substantially newer than this film was at the time it was exposed in January 2021. I chose to shoot mainly at aperture priority, because of very changing lighting conditions and the fact that I wanted to shoot with gloves in the cold weather.
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All in all, I am very pleased with how well the film held up over the years in terms of colour representation. How this film was when it was new is unknown to me, but as it stands today, it gives very nice colours, really capturing the subtle greens and detail in the shadows, really showing the nice day it was when it was taken.
In some images, I saw a weird magenta cast in the images. This was only visible in some of the images, and not consistently over the whole roll. I developed a roll of Kodak Portra 160 in the same tank at the same time as I developed the Mitsubishi, and I could not find any of these colour shifts on this roll, leading me to think there might be unevenness in the emulsion of this film. The images with the colour shifts, were at the end of the roll. Scan settings were identical all over the roll, and should not be impacting the images in any way.
I do like the images and how this film looks 15 years in though, and I have another roll of the same roll in the freezer, that I will meter at ISO 125 to give it a little more exposure. This will be done sometime in the spring, when there is more colour around to play with.
We all have our weak-spots as photography enthusiasts. I certainly have a weak spot for the lovely Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar lens. I will not in any way claim that I am even close to a lens and optics expert, but this lens, with its four elements in three groups, gives a sharpness and tone to the images I just love. I had one of these lenses for my M42 cameras, but this lens would benefit from some servicing as the aperture blades keeps jamming when stopping down further than f8, and the focusing ring is very heavy to operate.
A little while back, I read about a little rangefinder camera from East Germany that was said to be magnificent value for money and deliver splendid image quality and sharpness. The camera was called «Welta Belmira» and was, believe it or not, equipped with a lovely Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f2,8 lens. I started looking for one of these cameras to try out, and it was not difficult to find them. However, they were often in very varying condition and it was clear that getting the right and good one would take a while. And so sure it did, but after some months of searching and looking, I found one in decent condition. Yes, it was a bit dusty, and yes it had a dim rangefinder, but the camera in itself seemed to work really well.
My lineup for this test – a Welta Belmira and a roll of Kodak Tri-X400. I also used an external rangefinder unit, because the inbuilt one is very dim and only usable if the light is bright.
I went out to a location where there is a lovely artistic installation close to the lake, and I have thought for a while to experiment with some photography around this location. The origin of this artwork is unknown to me, but it is only accessible in the winter and spring time, as it will be submerged by the lake most of the summer time.
I also with this outing, made my first test of the Adox Atomal 49 developer. I read a bit about it online and saw some images developed in it, and I got curious to try it out myself. Atomal 49 is a very fine grain developer that gives you full film speed unlike Perceptol that will eat some of your speed. For that reason alone, I bought a 5L package of it and decided to give it a try. And based on these results with Tri-X at 35mm, I am very happy with what it looks like. This might well become a developer of preference to me, but I will obviously have to make more tests before deciding.
Back to the camera. I really enjoyed using the camera. It has a very special and differently engineered slider instead of the usual advance lever. It is a bit fiddly to use and has a tendency to stick at different points, but it works faultlessly. The dim rangefinder is not really an issue as long as you have an external one, and the focus ring seems to be pretty much accurate. However, I believe the camera «drags» the shutter speeds a little bit, but slight overexposure is not any issue with any negative film really.
As you have seen through my previous posts, I have been playing around with a Konica Autoreflex TC lately, doing different styles and types of photography with it and different films. Some days ago, I took it out once again with a roll of Fomapan 100and a yellow and a graded orange filter. I went for subtle snowy shapes in nature to test out both the sharpness of the lens, and to once again try the Fomapan 100. Over 2020, I shot many rolls of Fomapan 100 to test it out and get familiar with that film, and I must say that Fomapan 100 is a film I really like shooting, and that I find to give very fine grain when developed in Kodak X-tol at stock level, and that I get very nice results with it for most of my photography. However, this is my first test of this in snowy conditions.
Konica Autoreflex TC w 50mm Hexanon f1,8 lens w yellow filter. f11 1/125th Fomapan 100@100 Fomadon Excel 1+0
I did not have Kodak Xtol at this moment, because I’ve recently had two batches that split. I initially thought this was my mistake and that I hadn’t mixed it properly or made some other mistake with it; however, after some research online, I got leads about a bad batch of Xtol that had this issues. The date I bought the two bags of powder correlated well with the production and estimated sell-dates of the problem batch. Even though the two batches didn’t cause me any issues, I have not bought Xtol for a while. I will, however buy another batch some time soon. But I had a few bags of Fomadon Excel left, which is basically Foma’s take on the Kodak Xtol.
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Previously, I used to have Xtol in the spring, summer and autumn-time, when I shoot most film, and Fomadon Excel in wintertime, when I shoot less. When handeled properly, I cannot see difference between negatives developed with Excel and Xtol. One difference though, is that Fomadon Excel can be slightly more challenging to mix. I have found that mixing it as you wold mix Ilford Chemistry, with warmer water, makes the powder dissolve better and easier, and that is how I mix Fomadon Excel. For this particular process, I also used Foma Fixer and Foma Stop bath as well. So this is a all around Fomapan Process.
All in all, I am very happy with these images. They were taken very quickly whenever I saw something that I found worthy of shooting, and I find that they make the sky come forward in a very pleasant way.
Not far from where I live, there is a modern, wooden church called Seegård. It was built in 1997, following the tragic fire in the old church during easter in 1994. The new church was raised in the same spot as the old one, and in an attempt to keep the cross structure of the old church and modernizing it, but at the same time make something that would suit its area. Not easy demands for an architect to meet, but I find that the architect Arne Thorsrud has pulled it off really well.
I have worked with this church on multiple occasions, mainly digital, but the other day, I decided to bring out my Bronica ETR, and make some black and white images of the church in winter time. I fitted the Bronica with the 50mm Zenzanon lens and a yellow filter to help balance the contrasts a bit.
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To get the smooth results I wanted for this shoot, I decided to go with Ilford FP4 plus and combining it with Ilfotec Perceptol extremely fine grain developer. This is a combination I have found to work very well with winter conditions where snow and whites are prominent. However, you lose some film speed. In this instance, I shot the FP4 plus at ISO 50, and went for f11 which I find to be the sweet-spot of this lens. With a still standing subject like this church, which does not tend to move a lot, slower shutter speed is no real issue, and my shutter speeds were around 1/4th and 1/8th of a second with the correction for the yellow filter.
Seegård Church under the winter carpet. Zenza Bronica ETR w Zenzanon 50mm f2,8 and yellow filter. Ilford FP4 plus at 50 ISO – Ilfotec Perceptol 1+1
I did a few different angles and compositions, and a little bit of bracketing on a few of the compositions. After all, I ended with two images that I am very happy with, and they are the two I will share.
Seegård Church under the winter carpet. Zenza Bronica ETR w Zenzanon 50mm f2,8 and yellow filter. Ilford FP4 plus at 50 ISO – Ilfotec Perceptol 1+1
This entry is a sequel of a previous entry where I shot a roll of Ilford FP4 plus trying out my new Konica Autoreflex TC camera, and where I, somewhat irrelevantly compared it to the Olympus OM-1 because I saw a video about it on Youtube. In retrospect, I regret that comparison because I find the cameras to be very different and not too comparable. I therefore cleared my mind, and I rolled the Konica up with a roll of Kodak ProImage 100, which is my preferred colour film for 35mm winter photography, and I went for a little walk.
My car needed to visit the garage that morning, and I had some time to walk around shooting the Konica handheld to get a good feeling about how it performed. Since the morning weather (The lovely thing about Winter-Norway around 10.00) was bright, colourful and vibrant I chose to go with Colour Shooting
A short time-lapse of the beautiful weather conditions this day.
Even though the Konica really dislikes the cold weather and can start to play up in different ways, I learnt from this last time, and this time, I chose to consider where it had issues last time before I started working. Fist of all, when the shutter gets cold, it tends to stick a little bit, therefore I tried to keep the cameras as close to my body, under my jacket, most of the time. This probably looked a bit strange, but it worked. I also avoided the lens fogging up due to this.
Another issue I found last time, was that the rewind button under the camera sticked and would not operate properly outside and the film ripped. I tried this button on multiple occasions indoors later, and it always worked. So this time, I did not rewind the film before I came home, and I did not have any issues with ripped film. That said, though. The take-up spool did in fact cut off the tip of the film leader in some weird way.
I shot without filters this time, but I would probably have chosen to use a two stop polarizer if I had one for the ø55 filter tread. But when looking at the images, that was not really necessary after all. Working with the Konica camera is very pleasant, and it lies very well in the hand and has easy controls to operate. It also seems to be quite accurate in the normal shutter speeds that I have tried out, but then again, it doesn’t have shutter speeds between 1/8th and B.
What I really like, is that lovely Hexanon-lens. It has a very nice sharpness and it helps me render really vibrant colours and grey tones very well. I am looking forward to trying this one out with some Bokeh-shots with wide apertures at some stage. Stay tuned.
A short while ago, I shot a roll of expired medium format film and got «interesting» results with a lot of mottling and so on. I am not a very frequent user of expired films, but once in a while, I get hold of some expired film, and I do not mind trying it out either. Normally, the expired films you get hold of are your big manufacturers such as; Kodak, Ilford, Fuji and their friends. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were a huge number of rebranded films and budget options that are not present today.
In this entry, I am writing about my tryout of one of these films. A film sold in the pharmacies back in the day. The Boots Universal 400. Which film this actually is, is not easy to read out of the packaging or negatives. The negatives are fairly anonymous without much writing on them, and on the box, it only says that it is made in the EU for Boots Pharmacies in England. The EU-part leads my suspicion to either Agfa or Ferrania as the real producer of this film, but I will not make any claims. Please let me know in the comments if you know.
My equipment and film for this entry. Olympus OM-1 and the Boots Universal 400. Sadly, I did not get the extra 100 advantage card points from Boots, because I developed the film myself at home.
I chose to go with the Olympus OM-1 as it was a very cold morning. The temperature was -20 degrees when I arrived at the location, and the Olympus has an impeccable record of always functioning in cold weather conditions like the ones today.
Because the film expired in 2006, I chose to abide with the rule of thumbs, one stop pr decade, and I metered my shots at ISO 160, and did some slight bracketing just in case. My expectation from this film was slight colour casts and an increase in grain, which I indeed got. The colours were severely off in many of the shots, rendering the misty lake in everything from strong oranges to fiery reds. Instead of making heavy colour corrections in post-processing, I chose to go with the colours the film gave me, and I did not do any grain reduction either.
Some of the images got a nearly «Aquarelle like» mood to them, and I find them quite interesting and beautiful in their own way, even though they are clearly not the most spotless, nor grain free images I have taken by any means.
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Another interesting thing from this morning, was the the lighting conditions changed so much over the 45-60 minutes I was out shooting. The previous image was taken at the beginning of the session, and the following was image nr 36 on the roll.
Shooting films with huge amounts of grain is not normally my thing, but sometimes grain gives you images a little extra punch in the mood and makes them more interesting. In this case, I think that is what the grain did. It gave the images a level of abstraction that I find very pleasing. But I appreciate that this might not be everybody’s cup of tea.
Sometimes my interest is sparked in some way when I watch Youtube videos. A few weeks ago, I watched a video called «Konica Autoreflex TC – The poor mans OM-1». To me, this title did not really make much sense. In my opinion, the Olympus OM-1 is extensive value for money and indeed very affordable both when it comes to lenses and camera bodies. They are also accurate like clockwork, and relatively hassle-free to service and maintain. I have shot a large number of rolls through my OM-1 and it has never given me any problems even in very cold winter days. So if there would be a cheaper camera that reliable, that had to be a gem for this blog indeed.
My lovely Konica Autoreflex TC with its marvelous Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1,8 lens
I searched briefly online, and I actually found one incredibly cheap on a local Facebook sales page, and I got it for about 200 Norwegian Kroner (about 20 GBP) with shipping included. A real bargain there indeed. For the first tryout, I loaded it with a roll of Ilford FP4 plus that I shot at ISO50 and developed with Ilford Ilfotec Perceptol. I find that Perceptol really helps me get the winter tones I want for my shots, as well as a very fine grain.
The Konica turned out to be a lovely camera to work with. It is indeed a bit heavier and more bulky than the OM-1 but it fits my hand very well and everything is where you expect it to be, and it all seems to work rather well. I did not try the Aperture priority setting on the camera, but shot it on a variety of shutter speeds and aperture settings with a wide range of filters I found to be helpful for me at this location, which is an old museum. However, I do not see this camera and the Olympus OM-1 to be comparable as equipment.
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The Olympus OM-1 is a far more accurate camera with a broader selection of shutter speeds, all the way from a whole second to 1/1000th of a second plus BULB-mode. On the Konica, there is nothing between 1/8th and B, and the longer shutter speeds on my one «drags» a little bit. This could be the particular camera.
Also in the perceived build quality, the Konica is clearly a cheaper and less sophisticated camera than the OM-1. But if you forget about the irrelevant comparison to a clearly better camera, the little Konica is a very pleasant camera to work with, and the 50mm Hexanon Lens, is just outstanding. It gives a really nice sharpness, even at wide apertures and it is easy to focus.
Through my about 60 minutes photo-walk today, the Konica performed rather well for the first 20 minutes. After that, it coughed up a nice selection of issues and creative problems that I guess is it reacting with the cold weather. The temperature was about -12 degrees and some if these issues might be due to that.
Nr 1. Sticky shutter: After some shots the shutter started sticking every now and then. It did not matter which shutter speed the camera was set to. The only thing to do, was to tap the camera slightly so that the shutter would go off, and then shoot another frame to get one without immense camera shake.
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Nr 2. Slowed focusing. After a while out in the cold, the focusing ring got very slow, almost as if the lubrication thickened and became a gooey syrup.
Nr 3. Camera refused to rewind the film back into the cassette and ripped it instead. When I manually retrieved the film, it actually broke on another place as well. Luckily, I did not lose more than four shots, and all of them were bad. (happy days)
All these issues aside, I like the Konica Autoreflex and the Hexanon lens. A ripped film could very well be my mistake and the other issues could be weather related. My next test out of this camera will be with a colour film, trying to capture some lovely, bleak winter colours.
This entry is a sequel of the FP4 shoot with the Advent decorations. If you haven’t seen that entry, please scroll down and find it. In this entry, I have once again done like a cat, playing with the Christmas decorations. This time, I played with the Christmas tree and a roll of Kodak ProImage 100 and I used the Olympus OM-1 with the same 50mm lens that I often use it with. Originally my plan was to shoot this with the Praktica MTL5 B and the Helios 44-2 lens, but it turned out that the lovely Praktica didn’t really appreciate being hooked up with the shutter release cable, and it therefore decided to jam. Not the kind of jammed that you can easily fix yourself, the properly jammed jam. Therefore, I had to restart the shoot with the Olympus, which handled the cable just fine.
I shot the Zuiko Lens fully open at its maximum aperture of f1,8, but I chose to let the Christmas tree lights be my only light source and ended up using longer shutter speeds, such as 1/2, 1/4 and even one and three seconds.
Christmas tree angel – Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 lens. f1,8 shutter 1/2 seconds. Kodak Proimage 100
I know that there are many opinions on the Kodak ProImage 100 out and about. For my style and preference of photography, I find the ProImage to be brilliant for capturing winter colours where I often find Ektar too vibrant. Also, for indoor photography like this, I find this film to work perfectly, as I would often have to de-saturate Ektar in these situations. But again, this is personal preference. Personally, I like the «level between» Ektar and Portra as I see this film to be.
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These images are slightly colour corrected in Photoshop after scanning, there were no colour shifts, but I found that the images got scanned with slightly different white balance. Not a big deal though, as it was easily correctable with Photoshop. The film was developed using the Tetenal Colortec C41 kit, which I find to work very well and be easily controllable. When using this kit, I cannot understand why it took me so long before I dared to try developing colour myself.
Shooting around the Christmas tree – Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 lens. f1,8 shutter 1/2 seconds. Kodak Proimage 100
Thank you for reading and following me through 2020. Let us all hope for a better and less troublesome and pandemic 2021.
I am normally not too enthusiastic about expired films. For me photography is more about precision and less about experimenting. However, a while back I bought a camera online, and with it came a full package of Svema Foto65 expired in 1986. As this package was full and dust-free, I guessed they had been stored properly, maybe frozen or refrigerated over time. Therefore I decided to give these films a go.
As they are 120 films, I rolled one of them into my Bronica ETR, and went back to my favorite old derelict train station. If you have followed my blog for a while, you will have seen me shooting at that location before. I chose to rate the film at ISO 20 and bracket one stop in each direction. As it turned out, ISO 10 would have been my best pick for this outing. The films original box-speed was once ISO 80, and with the «one stop pr decade» 10 would be the correct speed I guess.
Because I feared very low contrast in the images, I chose to shoot with an orange filter to give the film some extra contrast boost. It seems to have worked out the way I expected it to.
Despite the nasty mottling all over the frame, the Svema Foto65 seems to have been a very fine grain and sharp film once. My guess is that this mottling has come off the backing paper, there are visible discoloration on both the negatives and the backing paper. If I am mistaking, please let me know in the comments. All in all, the Svema performed acceptably I find, and maybe a well kept roll of this film would still make really nice images, despite its age.
Cheap Camera Adventures 